


Almost

by Truthwritaslies



Category: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truthwritaslies/pseuds/Truthwritaslies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry wants what he cannot have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost

**Author's Note:**

> Abraham Lincoln: Vampire hunter belongs to whomever holds the rights. I am only borrowing the characters and make no profit off this story.

Henry met Adam when he was just a youth, full of himself and his own self-worth. 

Henry had been instantly intrigued by the man his father warned him away from. Part of it, it's true, had been rebellion against his father's rule but more of it had been simple fascination. 

The way Adam's dark eyes had seemed to hold too much knowledge for his apparent age. The way he had smirked at some private inner joke when Henry had forced his way into his father's business meeting, claiming that he was old enough to learn everything his father had to teach him rather than just being forced to play messenger boy between his father and the workers. The way he had said Henry's name when the two had been formally introduced by Henry's father, as though he knew things about Henry that Henry himself had not yet even thought might exist. Henry's father had given Adam a strange look; part warning, part fear, and later had ordered Henry away from Adam. 

Henry had ignored the warning the same way he ignored most of his father's orders in those days. It is a thing he regrets more than most things: that he didn't listen to his father when he had the chance. His father died shortly after Henry's engagement was made final. 

Adam had been everything at one time, so deeply had Henry been enthralled by the ageless man who had tempted him into deviancy far beyond what society would normally have allowed. There were certain nights that would have gotten the both of them hung if any had learned of them, though no one had been harmed by them taking pleasure in each other's body. 

But then Henry had met Anne and everything changed. Anne had made him want to be a better man than he had been those past five years. Even with her silly mission to build her wardrobe to gargantuan size he hadn't seen a single reason why they shouldn't be together. Adam hadn't even crossed his mind in months. 

He should have known better. Henry knew how possessive Adam was but he'd just laughed off Adam's claims that Henry belonged to him as they lounged around Adam's apartment in the city. Henry knew Adam had a manor-house somewhere but he'd never seen it personally. 

Henry should have known that just because Adam sent him a wedding present it didn't mean he was going to let Henry go. 

But he'd been young and foolish and in love. Henry hadn't thought the risks important because he hadn't known what the risks were and when Adam told him he was damned, Henry believed him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For hundreds of years Henry found men who had been deeply harmed by vampires and turned them into weapons against his own kind. Each, in his turn, had discovered Henry's secret and turned against him. Some he'd been forced to kill out of self-preservation but most had simply abandoned him to his fate. Many of those he'd later found to have been killed by vampires. only a handful had been turned and it pained him to send his new proteges against the old but he had a mission and he would not turn away.

Then he'd saved a young man from his own foolishness and trained him to be just another hunter. Somehow, though, Abraham had become something much more to him than a mere protege. 

There had been a moment when he'd seen himself in Abraham. When Henry'd seen the pain and anger he'd carried with him so long that it had turned into a icy coal deep in his gut burning hot and fresh in a new body. The others had all had a similar rage, a similar pain but it had all been tempered by a knowledge of life's cruelty; by a sense of resignation that only comes from a hard life: one spent viciously scraping for every chance you received. 

But Abraham was still innocent in someways, innocent enough to be wounded by Henry's hard words when Henry tried to push him away, to put a block in the path of their ever growing closeness. It's why he sends Abraham half-way across the country. 

Henry knows himself well enough to know that he can never just have what he wants once. He'd take Abraham and never let him go. And Abraham would suffer for it. 

That doesn't mean he isn't jealous when Abraham begins to court Mary. It's partly why he sends Abraham after Jack Barts and does nothing when William is taken by Vadoma. 

It hurts when Abraham chooses Mary over the cause. Over _Henry_ , though Henry can't blame him when Henry's own betrayal is so much worse. The look on Abraham's face when he'd discovered Henry's secret... 

So Henry left him alone, only taking care to watch out for Abraham because Lord knows that for all of Henry's teachings Abraham is still far too trusting for his own good. There are times when he offers his help but each time it is rejected. Each time it feels personal, like it's Henry who has been rejected. 

After the train, after he'd stumbled into a plan he had almost ruined, Abraham welcomes Henry back into his inner circle. It's almost, but not quite, like it was before. There is the closeness he's missed but also a distance he still isn't used to.

When Henry had trained Abraham there had been only the two of them and the occasional prostitute or doctor. Now Henry is forced to share Abraham's free time not only with Abraham's family but with Speed and William as well. 

It's hard. 

Every evening he sits in Abraham's office and watches him write. Every evening Henry fights the desire to push the papers away, to set the pen aside and lean too close to Abraham, to press the first of many kisses to Abraham's lips and show him the things Henry learned long ago at a far more sinister master's hand. 

Every evening he succeeds. 

That evening though, that evening Abraham closes his notebook and presses it into Henry's hands. He asks Henry to safeguard his thoughts and when Henry agrees Abraham kisses him. 

It's chaste and Henry can almost feel the moment slip away, the only moment he can have this because Abraham is a man of honor and he's not one to break his marriage vows, even for something Henry now knows they share. 

It's almost enough. 

It's almost enough to soften the pain when Henry sees Abraham's body laid out in the front parlor, as though he's just laid down for a nap. 

It's almost enough when people who don't know Abraham begin to speak of his greatness, as though they have any right. 

It's almost enough when Mary asks him to stay away from the funeral and he is forced to visit long after the others have gone home for the evening. 

It's almost enough to lessen the pain in his heart when he stands with the crowds before Abraham's statue and hear them discussing him as a god-like figure. Abraham would have been embarrassed to hear such words, especially about himself. 

He still trains men to be vampire hunters, sends them out into the world to kill his own kind, but he never looks too close at them; never tries to see in them what he once saw in Abraham. It would hurt too much to lose another love.


End file.
